Bicycle Repair

It's been about 2.5 months since I resumed my training from my real off-season .  October was a great time to start catching up on some neglected repair and maintenance of bicycles that I let go of over the crazy summer months of racing.  One thing I finally finished was to clean up my mountain bike which had been dormant for several years.  I had only riden it maybe one time with Rider at Pandapas in Blacksburg my Senior year.  After cleaning the drive train and frame and making sure the shifting and brakes worked, I took it out for a spin and quickly realized that both the front fork and body shocks were toast.  The body shock was not holding any air pressure and I think the springs in the fork were dead.  I intially brought it to the shop in Plainfield to get a quote on repair versus replacement for both shocks.  They talked with Fox(float shock) and RockShox(fork shock) and it came back that it was going to be way outside my budget for this bike. 

 

So plan B:  I looked up the service manual for the body shock and found a replacement seal kit for it online.  After a friend from work and I took it apart with some tools at his place, we noticed the air sleeve was damaged along with the seals being worn out.  Luckily, after I called Fox, I was able to buy a replacement air sleeve as well.  I came in well under budget and now the bike is ride-able again, although the front fork could still use some new springs.

 

If your ever thinking about selling that old bike, or putting alot of money into it, give a good look at the service manuals and call up the manufacturer for some replacement parts first.  It'll save quite a bit of money, and is a good learning experience to understand how to properly service your bike. 

 

I am still in the process of getting the 4 bikes I own, (Mtn, Cross, Road and Commuter) in perfect working condition, with spending minimal money.  This way I can have them all in great  riding condition so I can take any one of them out for a spin, whenever I want, without having to worry if they will work or not.

 

When I started riding full time a little over 3 years ago, I really didn't have any clue about bike maintenance, and how important it was to keep up with it.  Now I have that knowledge and recognize the importance of proper maintenance, not only for having a finely tuned racing bike, but to have any of your bikes work as good as they did when they first rolled of the showroom floor.  Being proactive with with preventative maintenanceis key and will help keep your investment keep it's worth for years to come.  I'm looking forward to having all my bikes work like new.

Finding a team

I have spent a large amount of time contacting teams; making phone calls, sending emails, and everything in between to try and secure a spot on a squad for the 2010 season. I will have to say this it has been a very involved, cumbersome and time consuming process.  I have had several promising leads, but most fell through due to different reasons.  Since I had already set up my training schedule in October, my preparations did not change during the process, but it was hard to stay motivated to train hard when I was getting rejection after rejection from teams that I thought would have been a very good fit.

But...

I have finally found a team and will be competing with the ReCycling Pro Development Team based out of Chicago, Illinois.  I am extremely excited about this opportunity as it came at a time when motivation and general optimism about where my cycling was going was at a low.  It was the motivation that I needed, and I think the team is not only tremendously talented, but very deep.  We will be a force to reckon with come early spring.  Being on a team is something that I enjoy greatly.  The one thing that I loved about my days of competing in cross country and track was how awesome it was to be a part of a team.  To compete side by side with people that have the same goals as you, and who will dig that much deeper for the guy next to him and the team's ultimate goals.  There are a lot of organizational details that will be worked out over the coming months before the season starts, especially since this is mainly a rider-run team, but our support will be tremendous including a team director, physiologist and mechanic.  We already have some great sponsors and plan to have more before the first race gets underway.

 

Through this process, it got my brain spinning about what actually goes into searching for a team, which is a lot like searching for a job. Here are some things to think about during your next team search. Hopefully you don't have to go through this process that often, but the more information you have about it, hopefully the easier it will be.

 

Finding a Team
There are 4 things that go into getting on that team you want: your resume, connections, timing and sacrifice. For me, my resume was mediocre (will one's resume ever be as good as you want?), my connections were decent and every improving, my timing was a little off and I had to do some soul searching about the sacrifices I was willing to make.

Resume: The results will get better with improved training and racing. I am training smarter all the time and with that increased fitness and ever growing racing knowledge, I know the results I'm looking for will come. Once your results are on paper there is nothing more you can do with them. So don't focus on the past results, learn from them and look to improve them.

Connections: Since I started racing bikes a little over 3 years ago I have met and befriended many amazing people in this sport, all who have had one thing in common, they love bike racing. Whether they were racers, coaches, directors, host families, whomever, they all are passionate about the sport. Make friends with as many people as possible and don't ever burn your bridges. You will quickly find out who is good and who is bad to have by your side, so be attentive. The cycling community is really like a family and the more people you know the more fun it becomes!

Timing: The younger you start in this sport the better. That's obvious for not only cycling but any sport you do. I in no way regret any of the time I spent running cross country and track, because without the years pounding the pavement I would not have the aerobic base that I do now. You can control the time in which you make contact with teams, so start near the end of the season and follow up constantly. Timing of outside events though is something you can't control, so you need to be nimble and be able to adapt to the current times. With the economic downturn of 2009 came reduced or cut budgets from the pro-tour level down to the amateur teams, which made it easy on no one.

Sacrifice: When is the sacrifice worth the outcome? How much do you love what you do? In the favorite words the VQ community, "Is the Juice worth the Squeeze"? Above all, you need to be happy, and be very aware of how your actions are affecting others around you. Cycling, and really any sport at the top level, requires the individual to be selfish. Are you being too selfish? Do the ones that love you support you in your passion for training and competing? You will most likely fail if you don't surround yourself with people who understand and support you with your goals.

ProBikeKit.com Affiliate

The reason I blog is two-fold; I enjoy writing and I enjoy bicycle racing. Therefore I like to write about bicycle racing and to be able to relay this information to anyone that is interested in either what I'm doing, bicycle racing, or both.

So in the continuing effort to provide relevant content to the main subject of my blog, as well as gain readers, I have decided to become an affiliate of one my favorite online resources for bicycle supplies, www.probikekit.com. If you have ever asked me a bicycle related question, I have probably given you the suggestion of ordering your supplies from www.probikekit.com The affiliate program is a way for me to help my readers by offering them a 5% discount on any purchase they make from www.probikekit.com. All you need to do is click through any of the www.probikekit.com links or banners within a blog post, or on the right hand sidebar of my blog, and then make an order. This program helps everyone, because in doing so, you the reader receive even cheaper prices for your cycling needs, www.probikekit.com receives more customers and I get a similar discount on my own gear I order, it's a win-win-win.

Some benefits of ordering online from www.ProBikeKit.com

• Free shipping to the US
• Large selection of cycling supplies
• Constant sales
• Email notification of when product is in stock.

I also wanted to quickly address the Local Bike Shop (LBS) versus online shopping topic with some of my opinions. I do not think that online retailers will ever replace the brick and mortar stores of your LBS, but they do offer a very good alternative. Many times the LBS are overpriced for certain gear, and I do believe that a cost conscious buyer will always seek out the best deal, whether that is online or at the LBS. More often than not, small supplies such as tires, tubes, cassettes, bar tape, etc. can be found cheaper online, especially if the shipping is free. But on the other hand, time is a luxury, and many times it's something that cyclists don't have a lot of. Especially when it's something critical that is preventing you from riding, you can't always wait around for days for something to be shipped out. So the LBS will still always be the best for quick supplies, repairs, new bike test rides and sales, advice and a great place to hang out with other like minded bicycle enthusiasts in your community.

So in summary here's what you do...

1. Click on the WWW.PROBIKEKIT.COM symbol on right, or the text-ad within a blog post
2. Purchase your gear with a 5% discount
3. Help me afford my gear with a similar discount

Thanks!

Great Deals On Cycle Clothing & Gear At Probikekit.Com

Off Season.

I'm a month into my training after taking all of October off. Well not completely off since I ran a couple of times and rode my cross bike once, which consisted of me practicing wheelies for an hour (I still suck at them, it's gonna take a lot more practice). I tried to remember the last time I took 4 weeks off in my career of endurance sports, and after reviewing a couple of old training logs I couldn't find any rest period that lasted more than 3 weeks. So this was a big amount of time for my body to try and recover from all the abuse and work that I have put it through over the last 11 years. The month of inactivity was good for healing some aches, but I don't think my body responded that well too it. One of the reasons I think this, is because I got a terrible sinus infection for a good 2 weeks. I hadn't been sick before that for more than a year, and it's funny that as soon as I stop working out my immune system goes down. Although this could have had a bit too do with a long weekend of tailgating and late nights will visiting my brother at Iowa.

I spent a few weeks in October getting my training schedule set up for the coming months, and this year will definitely be the most organized, thought out, realistic and specific training plan to date in all my years of running and/or cycling. I'm also bringing back an improved weight lifting routine which I got away from last year. I think the hours in the gym now, will benefit me even more than hours on the bike. Of course nothing compares to riding, but it's now in the 30s here in Chicago, so motivation is a bit harder to get outside and ride.

I have spent a great deal of time training for improvement, with running and cycling and anything else that I have set out to accomplish. There are a number of factors that go into improving as an athlete, some you can control and others not so much. Non-controllable factors like natural talent and body development are things that you are just born with. Certain people will be naturally better than others at a given sport at different times in their life's. You can't control them, so you have to just realize them, accept, and go on from there. The factors that you can control though are things like sleep or rest and training volume and specificity. It pays to be organized in endurance sports, mapping out training and being realistic with what one is capable of doing given certain restrictions is a must. You benefit much more from training when you can be consistent and methodical about it rather than spontaneous and erratic. That's not to say training needs to be dull, far from it, but it will pay you back much more come racing season if you can train with a consistent plan, then to just 'wing it'. Plus if you keep good notes you can always come back later and tweak things for the next year. It's much more fun to continue to improve in one's sport rather than plateau or even get worse. Many times improvement can even come from not just training more, or harder, but rather differently.

Photo by Kim

I have done a couple of cross races this fall for fun, and have accepted my fate in the 3s versus last year when I was trying to race the 1/2's and getting killed. I have a much more fun time when I race the 3s anyway, so until I actually focus training for cyclocross, I am not going to set myself up for disappointment. I will be racing the Illinois championships this weekend though to try and improve my 3rd place finish in the 3s from last year. I got the hole shot then, so let's see what I can do this year, with hopefully a lot less snow.

I don't plan on writing as much this winter, because I am trying to stay ontop of everything I have going on balancing a full time job, training, friends, family and even some off the bike off season fun, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I enjoy writing and have lots of stuff going on that sometimes I just want to share.

Some links and future things to come...

• NPR coverage of California Road Rage Case
• VT article on Sharing the Road and Reid's Reaction
• Building a Moped
• Mountain Bike Shocks Rebuild
• My basement training/workshop pictures
• Finding a team
• Some how-to's
  

Also if anyone is interested in a cycling specific lifting program, let me know and I can email you the spreadsheet I created from an old template from my HS assistant cross country coach. It's an excellent tracking tool for recording progress in the gym and it's philosophy comes straight from Friel's Training Bible, with a few minor tweaks.

ABD Fall Fling

After returning from UNIVEST in Philly on Sunday night the 13th, and starting work the following morning at 7am, I thought I was fully ready for the season to be done. I didn't touch my bike for 9 days, nor did I do anything physical at that. It was a bit rough on my system trying to get back into the swing of early mornings and 8 hour days at the office, but after a few days it was fine. The next weekend Kim's sister got married, so that was full of wedding activities. Then my van overheated on Monday and had to be towed back to Arlington Heights. Luckily my dad's old car was still at the house so we had a spare. But on Tuesday its battery died at work, so I had to be driven to the car parts store to get a replacement and install it in the parking lot. By this time I was sick of everything going on and I wanted nothing more than to get outside and ride, or run, or something. I didn't have enough daylight on Wednesday night after the dead battery situation to ride, so I went for a 4 mile jog. It felt good, but everything hurt afterward. I stretched a lot and the next day I got out and rode for an hour. It was again a really good feeling and I knew then there was a looming winter on the horizon and that I didn't want my season to be over just quite yet.

So the real last races of my season took place this past weekend. The fall fling series put on by ABD is a series of 4 races over 2 weekends consisting of a criterium, road race, time trial and circuit race. Saturday was the criterium around a very circular course in a business park. There was only one wide right turn followed by a large sweeping right that took you back to the start finish stretch and again to the right hand turn. My plan was to stay near the front and follow the threatening moves. There were about 5 guys to mark, and I'm pretty sure the entire field had them marked. It was a bit hard by myself since I seemed to be going on the defense quite a few times during the early laps. A hard counter attack from Hartley (Geargrinder) and Freund (ABD) established a gap with one other guy. They stayed out front by 15-25 seconds for the entire race. There was still a lot of action in the peloton to get a chase group formed. One or two times I thought I had gotten into a strong chase that could stay clear of the pack, but it never worked. The break of 3 stayed away for the win, and the field sprint was pathetic on my part. My legs were cramping up a bit and I really couldn't stand for the sprint. That's probably what 9 days off the bike and then racing will do to you.

Sunday was a bit more of my kind of race. A 10 x 6 mile 4 right hand turn square in rural Crete IL with lots of wind. The wind was pretty constant from the south so there was a tailwind on one stretch, head on the other, and cross winds on either side. The first few laps were pretty aggressive to get something formed and I just followed what I though might stay away. There was never the right combination of riders in the breaks and the peloton wasn't letting anything stay clear. Finally I got into a group of 3 with Will Nowak (Alderfer Bergen) and a Bicycle Heaven rider. The peloton pretty much let us go, so we organized quickly and started riding hard. We stayed away for about 3 laps, but I our gap stayed around 30 seconds instead of gradually rising. Will and I were driving the pace pretty hard and the strong wind wasn't making the 3 man break any easier. We finally got caught in the tail wind section by a chase group of 3, but within the next mile the peloton caught all of us. I was hoping that when the chase caught us we would then be able to stay clear with more numbers, but the pack was riding hard to shut us down. Within the next few minutes I was following wheels and again got myself into a break of 5 riders this time. We quickly got a large gap, and I tried working at first but soon realised that my legs were completely toast. I sat on for the next lap, pulling through every so often, which then turned into just sitting on. There were still 2.5 laps to go when I finally had to pull the plug after yo-yoing off the back of the break. I shut down everything to give myself a chance to try and recover enough to hook on to one of the chasing groups. They weren't too far back at this point, so when I got caught, I got passed pretty quickly. I soft pedaled in the last half lap and called it a day. I had worked myself into the ground, and made all the right moves, but my legs just weren't responding. I think in a mid season race it would have been a good hard, but manageable day, but after a long season with a big training gap before the weekend, it was painful.

Although this weekend was exactly what I wanted to do to myself. I wasn't ready for the season to be done, I think my mind was a bit ready, but my body wasn't. After this race weekend my mind and my body are both ready to take a break. The rest of October should be pretty relaxed for me, and I'll start my winter training again come November.

UNIVEST

Friday 9/11, Allentown TTT

The morning of the team time trial, I woke up to a cold, windy and rainy day. It was bringing back memories of the road race from last year. We arrived to the course with enough time to take a lap as a team before it closed down for the rest of the day. By this point I knew the all the turns very well from the laps in the car, on the bike and in my head. I did some visualization the night before which helped a ton. It's amazing how running through each turn in my mind the night before really helped me feel comfortable during the race. We were able to pull together enough trainers for the warm up that everyone had one. I got a decent warm up in, considering the trainer I was on had no resistance. With about 10 minutes to go we rolled to the start and checked in. By this time the rain was holding out, but it was still it the low 60s with wind gusts into the 40s. 3 Minutes to go, we head up to the start line in our pre determined order with some last minute equipment checks. 1 minute and we are ready to rock and roll. When the bell goes off Peter takes a slight lead and the rest of us fall into place behind him. After the first turn we try and get into position as fast as possible. The it takes a bit to get into a rotation, but we finally get organized and are flying down the long straightaway into turn 2. Our practice had gone very well the day before, so our team communication was decent. That, plus we had radios with Bernard in the follow car behind us letting us know to speed up or slow down, depending on our flow. At this point the wind was still a major factor, and the roads were wet, but the rain had died down. We made it through the first lap with only one causality in Alex, but he put in a big pull at the front before the uphill into the start/finish stretch. Our split time was decent, and put us mid-pack of the teams that had already finished. The second lap though we needed to hit it hard. We kept our formation tight, and handled the corners well. Nick fell off the pace midway into the 2nd lap, so we were down to 3 with Peter David and I to finish off the race. I was feeling surprisingly good up until this point, without having to go too much into the red. But as soon as we lost Nick it got exponentially harder, with the final few kilometers going all out to stay as a tight group of 3 to the finish line. The final uphill was a lot harder the second time, but once over it I went to the front for the final time and pulled hard. Then David took over and Peter rode the final stretch into the finish with the long pull across the finish line. I was the third rider, so the clock stopped when I crossed and I was completely drained. The race had gone from manageable almost the entire time, to very difficult the final half lap. Overall i was please with my effort, and our team ended up midpack, with a 15 of 30 team finish.

Saturday 9/12, Souderton RR

It is almost identical weather conditions at the start of this years race as it was last year. Overcast skies with a slight rain. It would end up raining pretty much the entire race, but a lot lighter than last year's monsoon. The race rolled out about 10 minutes late and half way into the "neutral" rollout there was disaster. Our whole team had great position at the front just behind the pace car, but almost all of the second half the riders were taken out from a stupid crash in the middle of the field. The stopped the whole field in the middle of the road and we waited another 10 minutes for the wounded to be taken care of mechanicals to be sorted out. I later found out that the crash even took a few people out of the race with broken bones. When they restarted us there was no neutral start, so it was parked to racing in a matter of seconds. I kept decent position near the front, and was cautious around the rain slicked corners. There was a huge sigh of relieve when I made it past the point I almost died in last year when I wiped out into an open intersection while chasing the peloton after a wheel change. There were a few attacks, but no one was really staying away until Peter got into a group of 2, then 3, that started putting time into the main field. Mike Olhesier eventually would bridge up to this group that would survive until 4 laps into the local circuit. Back in the field I was feeling good, but digging deep to keep my position on the tight and windy backroads of PA. The climbs were killer, with some extremely steep pitches on certain sections. I was glad that I had my 26 gear and it actually worked (unlike green mtn when I couldn't shift into it). While many people were out of the saddle spinning their wheels on the wet pavement, I was able to stay seated for most of the climbing and keep a good cadence. The last 200 meters of the second climb was all out of saddle though, and it seemed like myself and everyone around me was going in slow motion. The local laps finally came, but there were 33 more miles to ride during on the 3 mile 11 lap circuit. Each lap got faster and faster, and when the peloton eventually caught Peter's break the pace got really fast with counter attacks trying to form what would become the winning move. Each lap completed I could feel my legs closer to cramping and just loosing any power left I had in them. The hardest part of the circuit was the feed zone hill with people attacking over the top of it on the false flat section. After crossing the finish line for the 7th time I made my way up the hill for the last time. I dug deep, probably deeper than I ever have before to hold over the top of the hill. When I got to the top I turned around to find a huge gap with no one in sight. I was the last rider in line, and knew my time would be short lived back there. I made another effort to move up past a large group of riders to give myself some cushion. At this point it was hard enough for me to pedal, let along concentrate what I was doing, so when I made a right hand turn that I had done so with ease the previous 6 times, I overshot it big time. I didn't crash, but I forced myself up and over the curb, tried to regain my speed and get back on the street, but by this time the peloton was speeding away from me. I tried to sit in the caravan for a few turns, but my legs had nothing left. I had gone into my reserves one too many times. I soft pedaled the last of bit of lap 8 and the ref pulled me at the line. I couldn't be upset with today because I had out-lasted more than half the field, and improved upon last years DNF by a ton. It is a bit disheartening though because I took myself out of the race with a bad mental mistake. But it does go back to fitness because if I would have still felt OK at this point, I probably wouldn't have been racing in the half blacked-out state that is the "pain cave." Peter and Nick would go on to finish with the remnants of the main field, with David getting taken out by an unfortunate puncture in the local laps.

Sunday 9/13, Doyelstown Crit

Again, the weather mimicked last year's with not a cloud in the sky and high 70s; crazy. Pro crits have not been my strong suit all season long. I can't seem to move anywhere, and end up just racing as pack-fill, suffering the whole time. I have come to the conclusion that this is because I am too nice. I can get to the front of these fast paced races, but once I get there, I immediately start to lose my position, and then try again. Well this is not a good way to conserve energy, but I keep trying nonetheless. And then about 80-90% of the race finished, I finally pop and lose all motivation to continue my charge to the front. So for next season, my one and only goal for all criteriums that I race is to get to the front, stay at the front, and don't let anyone take my spot. That means no tapping the brakes on straightaways and taking corners without giving up position. This will let me keep my energy for the sprint and also keep myself out of danger. So anyway, I made the same mistakes today and raced as pack-fill, getting myself to the front several times before losing my position almost immediately and wasting a ton of matches. I lasted about 80% of the race and then was totally spent and had to drop. Right after the race I had to pack up my bike to be shipped home, and then get to the airport to catch a flight back to Chicago.

UNIVEST pre-race

After the last stage of the Green Mtn stage race I had an awesome dinner in Burlington with Peter, David and his parents, David's girlfriend's family and some other friends of theirs. I stayed at David's girlfriend's parents place that Monday night north of Burlington, before the long drive down to Philly the next morning.

Tuesday morning we packed 2 sedans worth of stuff for the 8 hour drive to Philly for the start of UNIVEST on Friday. We made a quick stop in Jersey on the way to pick up Nick, and rolled into our host house outside of New Town, PA around 8.

The next morning Peter had an interview with a local news channel, so after we got a morning ride in we all met at the FUJI warehouse outside of Philly. FUJI is the JBCA sponsor for bikes, and key in helping out Bernard and Ann and the their team throughout the season, especially during UNIVEST. We got a tour of the facility which consisted of a warehouse and a front office off engineers, sales people and marketing staff. We met a lot of different employees and got to talk about everything cycling from racing, technology and the upcoming Interbike convention in Las Vegas. FUJI was in full swing getting everything prepped to ship out to the convention in time for the week long dirt demo and showroom extravaganza that is Interbike. They had at least 4 or 5 mechanics building up the newest models of racing bikes and TT rigs to be inspected, before they were then disassembled and boxed for shipment. The warehouse consisted of rows upon rows of cardboard boxes filled with inventory to be shipped to retailers across the globe. FUJI actually is under the larger company Advanced Sports that owns SE bikes, Breezer, Kestrel and Fuji, so the building housed all 4 brands with their varying type of 2 wheeled products and accessories. I especially enjoyed seeing the new shimano Di2 gruppo installed on FUJI and Kestrel's latest time trial creations. I had only seen pictures of the new electric shifting, so it was neat to finally be able to see it up close and personal. We had a great lunch with the employees and left with a few freebies.

Afterwards we drove to Allentown to preview the TTT course from the car. It was about an hour drive from the house, and supposed to rain the next day, so at least a few laps in the car was better than showing up on race day with no prior knowledge. The course was situated in a very urban city center, which would either mean good or bad news for the new stage and how it is perceived. Out of the start gate there was a right hand turn to a long downhill over a bridge. Very exposed to the wind yet very fast. At the bottom was a sweeping right hand off camber turn to a short uphill. The course then weaved through some neighborhoods before making another small bridge crossing to another right hand turn and a fast flat section. The last few kilos switch backed steep city blocks before the last right hand turn into the flat finishing straightaway. After 2 laps in the car we called it a day and drove home for dinner and some rest.

On Thursday morning our 5th teammate Alex arrived and we got some pre-race practice in a nearby neighborhood taking corners at speed in a tight formation, focusing on communication at all times. Time trialing is a very delicate balance between raw power teamwork. You could have the fastest and strongest guys on a team, but if there is no communication and formation within the group, you won't get the results. A team can move the fastest when everyone is in sync with a good rotation, taking advantage of optimal drafting at all times. This allows the group, not just any given individual, to use its power effectively to produce the most speed. That night there was a race dinner at a grocery store that was sponsoring the event. Yes the dinner was inside the grocery store, it was a bit weird at first, but there were bunch of tables set up for teams and free access to the buffet bar, so it was cool. After another great dinner we went home and got some rest for the start of the weekend.